late night

too much on my mind right; i can't hash it out and write.

Thoughts on the "Charismatic Movement"

...

dear mother,

please stop telling me why being a doctor is awesome, and why electrical engineering is completely impractical.

transferring

Transferring has always been in the back of my mind, but after looking back at my year, I've given it some considerable thought. It's a scary thought though; if it's hard to get imbibed in a college community when a freshman, how much harder will it be to do the same as a junior? Probably one of the main reasons why I think I won't transfer, most likely.

Nevertheless...where?

(these are not in order I would pick them, just....in order of my attention span)

1. Stanford (#2)
Fantastic engineering school, California, but I won't get in. Not including the fact that I would probably get destroyed there.

2. USC (#26)
Could probably get in, and Viterbi is better than Northwestern's McCormick according to some rankings (but some others say otherwise). It's in California.

3. Princeton (#11)
Better engineering school than Northwestern, close to home. I have no idea how hard it is to get in, but I imagine not easy.

I had others in mind, I really don't know. Northwestern is a high ranked engineering school (#14), and I feel like it has a wimpy engineering curriculum (which means easier than I expected). I feel like if I went anywhere else, I'd get destroyed (one of the reasons why Berkeley isn't listed here, notorious for their "88% graduation rate in 6 years"). It's not the academics I had a problem with at Northwestern anyway...it's the lack of a fellowship that I have a problem with. A fear that I'll go through 4 years at this place, and walk away with the intent on forgetting everyone.

Plus, Cali. Damn.

hey

someone else try organizing stuff for once.

kthnx.

"AUG 13 UPDATE: Joshua Tico Kim's body was found by the Cofan people, downstream from Sinangue, where Tico taught little children about Jesus the day before he went missing. Praise God that his body was found by those whom he loved so much. Pastor DL and Pastor Inki are talking with the embassy to transport his body to Quito, then back to Orlando. Pray this goes smoothly as today is Ecuador's Independence Day."

the fucking

conversation i was waiting all summer for.

thank you.

That marks the start of the summer slowly ending...

thinking about applying to Stanford and USC.

Multiple topics to hit:

Hopefully, I'm done spending money on longboarding for a while. My quiver now:

Mctwist Hawaii 38"/topmount/kicktail (Walmart Board)
*Rayne Vendetta dropthrough/40"

*Paris 180mm, 50 dgs
*Caliber 184mm, 44dgs
Stock Walmart Trucks

*S9 Raceforms, 72mm, 82a
Abec11 Grippins, 70mm, 88a
Stock Walmart Wheels, 65mm, 70a
S9 Nine Balls, 70mm, 78a

*Protec Helmet
slide gloves

(* ordered, not here yet)

Half of this stuff is still on the way..haha. This week should be a pretty good week to wait by the door for shipments. It's nice because I'm actually fairly confident that this will be money well invested, rather than something I try a little while and will never try again (see e. guitar, pb gun). Longboarding is definitely become a hobby of mine, and I think it's natural for people to invest in their hobby. This past year and a half, I've spent around $120 on this sport, ($70 board, $20 gloves, $30 wheels), and it has provided me plenty of enjoyment and joy. Of course, this past week, I just dropped another $2** on a new complete, helmet, and DH trucks. It is a lot of money, but this entire past year I've been measuring things in my mind by how many boards I could've bought with said amount of money. Like most hobbies, a little investment is needed. I daresay, it's rather inexpensive compared to some hobbies.

Anyway, enough about longboarding...

---

It's so evident this summer. I guess it was unrealistic for me to return to Delaware and hope that nothing changed. Much has changed, some for the better and some for the worse. People have changed, formed complete new groups in college that make them feel more at home than WCEC. At first I was bitter, but I shouldn't be. Just like I make a conscious decision to talk to my DE friends more than my NU friends, they make a conscious decision to talk to more of their college friends.

I remember reading an article in a Toronto Starbucks about how many friends can someone truly have? I forget the exact numbers, but I want to say the article said a person could recognize 5,000 faces (shown by Facebook limiting you to 5,000 friends), memorize 2,000 names, know 150 people, 15 close friends, and 5 best friends. I'm not sure how these numbers were conjured up, but I moderately agree to those general numbers. My point...that there's only so many friends someone can naturally balance.

--

A talk some fellow men(? boys?) the other day about the ladies made me realize that we're truly growing up. The dating mindset suddenly doesn't seem as free-spirited and go-with-the-flow. Initial attraction must be paired with well thought compatibility and input. It would be a secret dream of my (and ours) to have many "internal" weddings (and I won't expand on that), but for said reasons above, and looking at past generations...it typically doesn't happen. Which is fine, you can't force people to pair, that only means these...guys I've come so close with will soon depart. Nevertheless, I don't know what the future holds, only God does, and He who gave His son for us, how will He not also give us all things....so trust, yes trust in Him with my future.

--

Mr. Lin. The first time I met Mr. Lin was at '07 Winter Retreat. I wanted to go to LT's session, but a bunch of the guys wanted to stay together, so they erased my name and put me in Mr. Lin's session, because it was the only one with enough space. I was bored asleep almost every session, and upset that the guys switched me. Bad first impression of Mr. Lin. The funny thing is that the session was teaching us how to read the Bible, maybe a theme for the rest of what he taught me at WCEC. As I learned more from Mr. Lin and respected him more and more, I came to realize how obedient he was as a man of God. Always having a smile on his face, and always having faith in the leaders when many times we had no idea what we were doing. Why I didn't trust his last decision in my time at WCEC yg, perplexes me. Proved wrong again. Mr. Lin...made me truely believe that WCEC was more than a place we hung out and made friends, but he truly showed me what the Christian lifestyle was like, through his actions, through his teachings, and just being so approachable for any questions I had. I've certainly changed my opinion on Mr. Lin since my first encounter, and he's become a true role model. A Christian engineer =P

--

Screw physics. Despite how the experiments can be cool. That is all.

Eddy currents -_-

I can't NOT post this

"PLEASE PRAY...dear friends, please pray for a dear college student of ours who was on a missions trip to Ecuador. he was swept away by a rough current in the river and has been missing for over 48 hours. please pray for the safe return of Joshua Tico Kim and for his family."

"Please take some time to offer up prayers for my dear brother Joshua Tico Kim. He is part of a mission team that went to Ecuador. Thursday late afternoon the trip was winding down and they were swimming in the river when he got caught in the current. He has been missing since and officials and locals have been searching but nothing yet. Please PLEASE pray for him, that he would be found soon and return home safely and pray for his father, mother, and younger brother..."

These are some snippets of things people have been posting over facebook...

Joshua Tico Kim is now a junior in college. He's from Orlando, Florida, but I've known him through missions in the past years. While on a mission trip to Ecuador this past week, he went missing and is yet to be found.

Please please please pray for him and his family."

guilty as charged

Moments more than a year ago, moments I gravely regret, suddenly come hurdling back at me.

But I deserve it. Fuck my dumb self.

random

engineers...are awesome.

whoever came up with parity bits for the 7-4 Hamming Code..

and the commutator for AC motors...holy crap. You are brilliant!

(And I guess Hamming came up with the Hamming Code)

the future board

deck:
trucks: caliber forty-fours $30
bushings:
wheels:

25% there

Here I raise my Ebenezer

I don't write often because I see no quality in my writing, and many times I think, why I should say something when it's been said before in a better form? However, writing helps organize my otherwise disheveled mind, so here it goes.
--
I'm at a "spiritual low," as a Christian would politely say. The truth is that I haven't prayed on my own for more months then I can admit, and many times doubt if I'm really a Christian. After all, I've learned enough about Christianity to know the basics--there's no such thing as a lukewarm Christian.

But I am a Christian, but many times the full Gospel message hasn't hit me yet, it hasn't resonated in me. I correlate my prayer life and actions with how well I'm doing in my "relationship with Jesus," as if Jesus is impressed with how consistent my prayers are. Like I'm a better person than Mr. John Doe because I read a passage that day. Or that He is dissatisfied because I wasted the day on the internet. That I can't pray because my hands are stained with the blood of guilt. He died so that I might live, and live to the fullest, that I might be freed from this dog-eat-dog world, where the only name that matters is my own. I'm called to live a radical life because it's freeing from this one. This one that makes me feel inadequate as a man, a friend, a son, a brother...a person. That I can say these things and be unashamed because I no longer trust in my inadequate self but a perfect God.

For the longest time, I couldn't understand that "personal relationship" with God. It simply didn't make sense to me, how could you call Jesus your best friend? Or, as Donald Miller put it (and weeks of my undying prayer request) "living as if she just got off the phone with God?" I'm still confused and boggled by it, but I had a little taste of this past school year. When I lost God, my confidence, my dignity...when I resorted to a TV episode so I could forget about my situation for thirty minutes...it seemed like everyone else had a place to be. But actually I was right where I needed to be, and with a broken and contrite heart, "Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood."

So here I raise my Ebenezer, as a show that You have been faithful. I'm not where I expected I'd be this summer, but Your ways are above my ways, and Your thoughts are above my thoughts. Thank you.
--
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.